Starlady & Fast-Friend Read online

  Hal did not smile back. “Janey Small,” he said, pointing. “Stumblecat.”

  Stumblecat nodded. Janey stood frozen.

  “You’re clearly a star-born,” Stumblecat said in his cultured tones. “How ever did you wind up with Hal?”

  “Starlady was passing through,” Hairy Hal said sharply. “She hired the wrong bodyguard. Listened to Crawney spin, an’ wound up raped and ripped. Now she’s with Hal.”

  “You always were one to take advantage of a ripe situation, Hal,” Stumblecat said. He laughed. “Well, I’ll keep the starlady in mind the next time I’m looking. She might be an interesting change.”

  Hairy Hal was not amused, but he kept from showing it. He shrugged. “Yours anytime, Stumblecat,” he said slowly.

  “For a spin and a smile, Hal?”

  Hal’s face was dark. “For a spin and a smile, Stumblecat,” he said slowly.

  Stumblecat laughed, stroked Janey with a soft furred hand, then turned and left.

  And Janey, hot eyes glaring, turned on Hairy Hal. “I agreed to work for you because you gave me no choice. I don’t like it, but I recognize the situation I’m in. There was nothing said about you giving me to your friends.”

  Hal frowned hard. “An’ nothing done, either. Listen to the biggest rule, starlady. Insiders, Prometheans, you scope them good, an’ give them room, an’ let them be customers. Nobody gets you free, cept black skulls. Yes, starlady. Like the ones who raped you up, don’t look so white. For them, you do anything, be nice, charge nothing less they offer to pay. An’ also for the black skull bosses. Like the Marquis, who Hal will tell about. Like Crawney, who hit you. An’ Stumblecat.

  “Hey now, starlady, you look shocked. Why? Mayliss spun you straight, you knew it. Probly you thought Stumblecat was a good guy, right? Cause he talks like you, only better. Well, starlady just did another stupid. First she hums to Crawney, now to Stumblecat. Next thing you’ll be cuddling the Marquis himself; you already got both his leetenants.”

  His good hand was pinching her shoulder painfully as he spoke, and people in the crowd were throwing quick looks their way. Janey, furious, spun free.

  “What about all that protection?” she shouted. “If I don’t even get that much, why should I wear this?” She tore off her headband, thrust it at him.

  Hairy Hal stood there, looking down at it. When he spoke, his voice was low. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he said, shrugging. “Up to you, starlady. Hal doesn’t force no one.” He smiled. “But he’s better than them.”

  Janey stared at him, saying nothing, holding the red rag out in her hand. Hal looked at the ground and scratched his head. And, in the awkward silence, a third man approached.

  He was short, heavy, off-world; his clothes were rich. And his eyes moved constantly in a nervous scramble to see if anyone he knew was around. “Excuse me,” he said. Quickly, quickly. “I—that is—the man on my ship told me to look for a man with a green cape and, well, ah, hair.” He waited expectantly.

  Hairy Hal looked at him, then at Janey. He said nothing.

  Her hand fell. She stared at Hal’s face, then at the ground, then—finally—at the off-worlder.

  “Come on,” she said at last.

  * * *

  Somewhere along the line, her name got lost. Janey Small of Rhiannon was gone, flown away on a ship hardly remembered. She was Starlady, and she did a thriving trade.

  It wasn’t the off-worlders so much; after the first, they came to her no more than any other. It was the starslummers who gave her business, the kids with the hand-me-down stingsticks and the whooping swoopsuits who caught the scent of the stars. They’d grown up with shaved-skull hard-eyed redheads, and they wanted hair and dreams and maybe innocence. They hummed to Starlady. They came to Starlady.

  And she learned, yes yes, she learned.

  There was a night-cycle near the docks, when a corridor club got a hold of her. The queen of the club was a blue-skulled dreamer, and the man she hummed to had gone to Starlady. So she stared and smiled and drooled while her three underboys stripped their catch and started to play with their stingsticks. Ah, but then Hairy Hal was there! Starlady had friends all along the Concourse, and the friends had seen the grab, and they got to Hal, and he knew the dock section where the club called home. Such a short fight. An underboy swung his stingstick, Hal lifted his humming blue ghost blade, the baton sheared neatly in two, and the club ran.

  And she learned, yes yes, she learned.

  There was an afternoon at Hal’s in the third bedroom, the special one with the canceller that wiped out Thisrock’s gravity grid. But the customer wanted more than free-fall fun; he had a nervelash, which is like a stingstick, only worse. She screamed, and Hal was there, kicking off and floating fast and graceful, bringing his no-knife up and around. Afterwards they had to turn off the canceller, to ground all the droplets of blood.

  And she learned, yes yes, she learned.

  There was a conference at Hal’s one night, and she met Dark Edward with his hot red eyes and his double stingstick and his plans for being emperor again, plus Fat Mollie who ran a stable of boys. They wanted Hairy Hal to join them. “It’s a straight spin, Hal,” Dark Edward said in a ponderous voice. “We can hit him good, and I’ll make you my leetenant.” He talked and talked and talked, but Hal just shook his head and threw them out. Afterwards he and Mayliss fought for hours.

  But there came a silver morning two weeks later, when Crawney and Stumblecat dragged Dark Edward screaming to the center of the Plaza. At first Janey just watched Stumblecat, in all his soft-furred clumsiness, and noted the lack of feline grace that Hal had told her of, the curious lack that made him a reject from Prometheus and gave him his curious name. Then she saw the Marquis, and she knew what was going to happen.

  The Marquis had all of Stumblecat’s stolen grace. He wore black boots, and the robes of an insider, but he was very silent. His skull was silver; it shone in the Plaza light. Around it, covering his eyes, was a solid ring of tinted blueblack plastic.

  While Janey watched, while hundreds watched, he took Dark Edward’s double stingstick and turned it on. Crawney and Stumblecat held the victim. The Marquis played for hours.

  And she never saw Fat Mollie after that day, either.

  Oh yes, she learned, and soon she knew the rules. She was Starlady, and Hairy Hal was her protection and she was safer than most around her. The blackskulls never bothered her. She was beneath them.

  “The Marquis is a stupid,” Hal told her after Dark Edward’s death, when she came home early from the Plaza. “Dark Edward, well, he was worse, but still. Listen, the dreamboss clicks, right? The dust comes in on ships an’ his men get it quiet an’ sell it quiet an’ no one knows the dreamboss an’ no one knows how to touch him. Lametta tried, got hit. Hard! Probly the dreamboss will buy himself inside someday, the way he clicks. See?

  “But Marquis, he doesn’t click. Too loud. Everybody knows the Marquis, everybody chills to him, only he won’t never buy his way down inside. The insiders don’t want him marching round the Ivory Halls, less he’s got an exotic for them and a quick exit-pass.

  “He started with exotics, Starlady. Alters like Stumblecat, an’ a couple Hrangans, green gushies, Fyndii mindmutes, that kind. Got all the exotics on Thisrock, right? The insiders, well, some of them hum sick, but they want to hum bad, an’ they want to hum quiet, an’ they pay a lot. Prometheans come too. The Marquis hums sick himself, but different, he hums to pain, an’ power probly, but mostly pain. Good with a stingstick, though, an’ he got the exotics. After that he got a lot of other things, joy-smoke and grabtabs and ripping, all his now. Exotics are still a big slice, the Marquis has them all.

  “Only, well, he’s so loud, an’ it’ll kill him. Someday he’ll try to hit the dreamboss, or squeeze an insider for quiet-money, or something. Maybe Stumblecat will take him. Stumblecat spins quieter, Starlady, an’ Hal knows he don’t like seconds. Hitting Dark Edward in the Plaza was just a stupid. The Marquis wants
to chill everybody, cept it won’t click.”

  He was sitting at his table eating as he spoke, his cape thrown back, his claw-like right hand clutching the plate as his left cut and speared with a kitchen knife. Janey sat across from him. In the corner of the room, regarding them both with immense blue eyes, Golden Boy sat on the couch.

  Golden Boy had an easier time of it than Janey. Hairy Hal had run boys before, he said, but he wasn’t running Golden Boy, not yet. He just kept saying that he had plans. The youth sat around the compartment all day, eating and staring at people, never saying a word. Somehow he seemed to know what was required of him, whenever something was. Mayliss, after mothering him for a week, had finally gotten tired of the way he shrank away in fear whenever she came near him. She clawed him badly with sharpened nails, then ignored him after Hairy Hal promised her a taste of no-knife if she did it again. “Golden Boy’s got to stay pretty,” he told her, with his ghost-blade in his good hand. She’d been backed up against her bedroom door, looking terrified but oddly ecstatic. That night she and Hal had slept together, the only time since Janey Small and Golden Boy had arrived.

  Most times Hal slept alone. That first night, he’d tried to sleep with Janey, but she’d pulled away and glared at him. “I did it for you all day, and you’ve got the money,” she said. “I’m not going to do it with you too.”

  And he’d let her go and shrugged. “Starlady, you’re a strange one,” he said. Then he went to his room by himself. Janey sat by Golden Boy on the couch, looking at his eyes and brushing back his silver hair. Finally they’d gone to sleep together in the free-fall chamber, arms wrapped around each other as they nestled in the sleep-web. Golden Boy simply held her and slept. He knew what was required of him.

  It was that way every night. Hairy Hal tried once more, after he’d saved her from the corridor club. Back in the compartment, he’d sat by her on the couch and kept his arm around her until she stopped her trembling. Then he got up and went to his bedroom. He paused at the door, favoring her with a smile and one of his cock-the-head questioning looks. “Janey?”

  “No,” she said. He shrugged, and gave up trying.

  After all, he wanted Janey, and Janey was long gone. She was Starlady and she had her Golden Boy.

  * * *

  Then one day, when Janey came back from the Silver Plaza, Golden Boy was gone. She looked around the compartment frantically; he’d never left before. But there was no one home but Mayliss and a paunchy off-worlder, afloat in the free-fall room. Mayliss glared at her as she stood in the doorframe, but the man just chuckled and said, “Well, well, c’mon in.”

  When he’d left finally, Mayliss put on a sheath and came storming and spewing out at her. “I’ll chill you down good, Starlady, and if Hal don’t like it I’ll cut off his crottled arm. What’s the big spin?”

  “Golden Boy is gone.”

  “So? Hal’s out selling him, little girl. Grow up.”

  Janey blinked. “What?”

  Mayliss snorted in disgust, and put her hands on her hips. “I spun you straight. Why’d you think Hairy Hal let Golden Boy sit round here all day and powder his ass with dreamdust like he was an insider or something? Cause Hal clicks right, is that what you figured? So, wrong. Hal was waiting for a big sell. He spun it all out to me. With all those fun boys coming through here every day, sooner or later word’s probly going to get down inside, that’s where Hal wanted it, see? Lots of insiders like little boys, and he knew they’d pay big for a little golden boy with pointy ears and big eyes and silver hair. Only Hal couldn’t zactly parade round the Ivory Halls giving out handbills, right?”

  “He won’t do it,” Janey said stubbornly. “Golden Boy won’t do it!”

  Mayliss laughed. “You warm me, Starlady, you’re such a stupid. Listen good, cause I’m going to spin you right. Golden Boy will do zactly what Hal says. You think you learned a lot, but you don’t know nothing. Stead of a clear skull, you got a head full of hair and stars. I think you hum to Golden Boy, you know, and that’s so warm it’s boiling.”

  “I love him,” Janey said, with storms flashing across her face. “He’s kind and gentle and he’s never done anyone any harm, and he’s a hell of a lot better than anyone else on Thisrock.”

  But Mayliss only laughed again “You’ll learn, Starlady. Hal don’t click, but at least he clicks better’n Golden Boy. Listen, I used to hum to Hal once. I had to learn.”

  “What? That he uses people? Well, I learned that fast enough,” Janey said. She turned and went to the couch and sat down.

  Mayliss followed her. “No, Starlady, you got it spun up all wobbly and tangled. I thought Hairy Hal was a big hero. He was faster with his no-knife than anybody, and he looked good, and he spun big about how he was going to click. Yes, and little Mayliss believed it all. Cept one night, after Hal’d been doing too good, there was this knock on the door, right? Crawney. Back then, Hal had me and two other girls and a couple boys and some exotics plus he had some ’sticks working for him, and he was spinning about a slice of joy-smoke. Well, Crawney came to chill him down. The Marquis wanted joy-smoke, you see, and the Marquis didn’t like Hal having exotics.

  “Well, Hairy Hal just laughed at Crawney, and I hummed to that. It was a long time ago, right, and the Marquis wasn’t so big and Hal wasn’t so small, and Lametta was even still round. Hal had plans.

  “Cept Crawney didn’t like being laughed at. A couple cycles later, the blackskulls grabbed Hal and me and took us down by the docks. Crawney was there, and Stumblecat, and the Marquis. They made me watch, while the blackskulls broke his arm all up, again and again until he was screaming. Right? Then the Marquis just smiled and said, ‘Hey, Hal’s arm is broken, he needs a splint,’ and they splinted it with a stingstick, and just stood there and watched him on the floor.

  “Afterward, all the nerves were crottled or something, and Hal wasn’t nothing with his no-knife. Everybody left him; his ’sticks, his girls, everybody. The Marquis took his exotics. Hairy Hal had nothing cept me. Little stupid Mayliss, she still hummed to him, and I stayed. I helped him use his other hand, and I thought once he was good again, he’d take his no-knife and go after the Marquis, right?

  “Well, wrong. That’s where my spin went wobbly on me, and I learned. Hairy Hal was scared and he still is. He’s never dared to get big again cause the Marquis gives him big chills. Every once in a while one of the blackskulls’ll come by to have me, and they never pay, and Hal never does anything. They’ll do it to you, too, watch. You’ll learn, Starlady. You’re a stupid if you hum to anyone, or buy anybody’s spin, or do anything for anyone but you!”

  Janey waited until the outburst had passed. Then, very quietly, she said, “If you gave up on Hal, then why are you still here?”

  Before Mayliss could answer the door opened, and Hairy Hal and Golden Boy were back. Hal was smiling broadly. He reached under his cape, pulled out a packet, and tossed it on the table. Mayliss looked at it, grinned, and whistled.

  “Golden Boy clicked good down in the Ivory Halls,” Hal said. Then, startled, he stopped and looked at Janey. She’d gone to Golden Boy and wrapped her arms around him and now she was fighting not to cry.

  * * *

  So things began to click.

  Down inside, in the Ivory Halls and the Velvet Corridors, in the great cool compartments around the Central Square, the word was loose. And the customers came; sleek blond men in woven robes, matrons in dragon dresses, adventurous girls in soft plastic. Others sent for Golden Boy, and Hairy Hal took him to them, walking the streets inside as if he were born to them. He handled things quiet and smooth, and he sold Golden Boy only for big money. No starslum funboys got their hands on him; Hal had his wide-eyed gold mine reserved for men of taste.

  And Golden Boy went, and did what was required of him. He never spoke, but he seemed to understand, sometimes even without Hal telling him. It was almost like he knew what he was doing.

  Sometimes the insiders would buy him for a night, and
Janey would float in her sleep-web alone.

  On one of those nights, Hal returned from inside by himself, carrying a heavy book under his good arm. He was sitting at the table, poring over the pages, when Janey and a customer returned from the Silver Plaza. He ignored them and kept poring.

  When the man had gone, Janey came out and looked at him sullenly. “What’s that?” she asked.

  Hal glanced up, smiled. “Hey, Starlady. Come an’ look. Hal got it for Golden Boy tonight from an insider. It’s old, you know, pre-Collapse. Straight spin!”

  Janey walked around behind him to peer over his shoulder. The pages were big, glossy, full of closely packed text and bright holostrations of strange creatures in colorful costumes.

  “There’s something here, look here, about a race that might be Golden Boy’s. Look at that picture, Starlady, the same, only the hair is the wrong color. Still. They were a Hrangan slave-race before the war or the Collapse. So, probly Golden Boy is a little Bashii. Unless….” He riffled some more pages. “Here, this part about genetic alteration experiments an’ cloning an’ that stuff. The Earth Imperials were trying to clone their best pilots an’ such, duplicate them. An’ you had alters, like Stumblecat cept he’s a defect. See starlady, it has this bit about esthetic alters on Old Earth, pretty boys, being worked up. So. Maybe he’s one of those. From Old Earth, what a spin! Thisrock hasn’t heard from that far in, well, long time. It chills you, right Janey?”

  His enthusiasm was a flood; Janey felt herself smiling at him. “I don’t think he’s from Old Earth,” she said. “If he were, he could talk to us. He’s probably a Bashii. But I really don’t care what he is. He’s just Golden Boy.”

  “Just! Janey, you’re positively warm. Listen, he’s clicking for us, Starlady. They hum to him down there, they hum high an’ hot, an’ probly they’re going to want him down there more, right? But he won’t do it right less Hal wants it, an’ Janey, of course. In a while, Starlady, we can buy down inside, all of us, cause Golden Boy is Golden Boy. An’ cause Hairy Hal is quiet, right?”